#RiseOfTheBadger follows my online gaming persona “honeybadger” on a journey into the world of online video game streaming. With the stage now set, it’s time to sit back, relax and watch as The Badger ventures out into the unknown.

#RiseOfTheBadger

“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!”
― Sylvester Stallone, Rocky Balboa

Badger Begins

The first week of streaming to twitch was always going to be an interesting one. Would anyone watch me apart from the occasional curious friend, or would I be left staring down a camera, not a soul in sight. If they did watch me, would they speak to me in chat? Would I be able to interact with people from far away lands? Or would I be left in silence, cold and alone in the dark?

It would be easy to act all cool, calm and collected, and say that it didn’t matter. I could say that it’s only for the love of the game. I’ve been partaking in the video game world all my life, so what should anything matter, I’m just playing games with the added ability of streaming them. So ultimately, who really cares if anyone watches right? It’s not going to affect me as I’m already doing what I love.

But that’s not the case is it? Far from it. Underneath this cool, calm exterior there’s a child like excitement about to break out. It’s not quite like being sat in a room playing video games by my lonesome. Time and effort has been put in building a stage. Care has been taken to set up a Twitch channel. A Twitter page has been created to build an audience. I’ve invested so I can set out on this new adventure. Now the spotlight has come on and I’m about to enter from stage right!

This is my time to shine, as soon as that broadcast button is hit, a whole world awaits me. In fact, right now as we speak in this very moment there are 32,665 viewers watching Player Unknowns BattleGrounds live on Twitch, that’s a larger capacity than the entire O2 Arena! Gone are the days of standing at an arcade cabinet in “Funland” on the seafront with a couple of strangers looking over your shoulder as you bash the buttons spitting out fireballs in “Street Fighter”. This is far beyond anything that has gone before. Fame is but one click of that broadcast button away.

The Button was clicked. “Honeybadger” went live. The Badger had been released out into the wild………

………..nothing happened. I sat there for a minute waiting, as if there would be people automatically piling in to witness the powers of The Badger. I had tweeted I was going live and it was retweeted a couple of times. So there I sat, eyes transfixed on the viewership number, but sadly it never changed. I proceeded to play, and kept playing for a couple of hours, but still nothing.

For the first few clicks of that broadcast button nothing really happened. I just continued to play. A couple of old friends popped by and said hi, watched for a few minutes, then left. I was live streaming to the big wide world, yet it wasn’t being seen. But why would it? Live streaming games is now popular. There are tens of thousands of people streaming their games all over the world at any one time. So just pressing that broadcast button isn’t going to bring hundreds of viewers running over to my stream.

After persevering for the first few days, I eventually saw people coming in and out of my stream. Sometimes there would be one or two lurking in the background, then they would leave. Towards the end of the week, if finally happened. I got my first chatter. “Meserlin”

This was remarkable. This person, who I had never seen before, came into my stream and started chatting to me. This type of interactivity whilst game playing was a new experience, and I bloody loved it. Somebody was watching me play games and they even had fun watching! Whats more, they followed me live on air! It gave me a buzz. It was exciting and new. I wanted more!

Ending my first week like this I considered successful. It added to my curiosity, is it really possible for me to actually make this work? Can i grow my audience so that I have regular followers who come and visit me while I play video games? This we have yet to see, but whatever happens, The Badger won’t quit……….